Vintage shots from days gone by!

Have you never seen or used a toboggan?

 

Yep.Toboggans have been around for centuries in one form or another.I believe that they were originally used for transport of peoples supplies and belongings.Were people or animal powered.
Good luck.Have fun.Be safe.
Leo

 

We had them back them it's just the wore their belts ABOVE their belly not below so we didn't notice as much..

 

There’s two points in history that you’ve brought up, one being Pan Pacific Auditorium and the other being Tiny Naylor’s, we’ll add in a 3rd being the lost Torrance Parasol Restaurant to make was for a Drug Store.

I was always in awe of the Pan Pacific Auditoriums Architecture. Wurderman & Becket AIA. Those guys penned the best Art Deco buildings ever!!!!!
Thus building has so many different connections, but one really important one is its benefactor which owned it until his own passing= Errett Loban Cord of the Auburn-Cord-Duesenberg concern along with Lycoming, American Airways-(Airlines), Vultee Aircraft and 150 other companies. Such a great building and I must have had some form of an attachment because I was always seeing how I can help saving it....
Sad day when it burned, so much so that I went to the site while KFWB reporter Pete Demetrio was filing his report and he inquired about my feelings. “I felt what a Tragedy!”
I’m about rebuilding/maintaining, I cannot stand destruction especially to a treasured work of art.
Tiny Naylor’s, now here!s another part of my appreciation for all things ”Googie”.
I spent many weeknight going to clubs with my sis so that she could go see her favorite bands on Sunset Bl. The Whisky was always hopping with some kool bands like the Dickie’s, 20/20, The Knack, Phil Seymour, The Suburban Lawns, Soushie & the Banshees Cheap Trick, Patti Smith Group and so many others.....
Well the Delores Drive-In was one of our stops on the way home as was Ship’s Westwood, Biff’s, Tiny Naylor’s on occasion DuPar’s.
IHOP, Sambos, Copper Penny, Bob’s and so many fast food joints like Naugle’s.
One in particular really stood out in my head. That was Tiny Naylor’s Drive-In. My dad drove us there in the family’s 55-T-Bird in many occasions when we were quite young.
It’s architecture was out of this world and as Humphrey Bogart commented once, It was like a space ship coming in for a landing.
Study that building and look at the space shuttle and if you squint one may see a resemblance.
When I saw it closed in 1984, I was bummed, but the worst was yet to come=demolition of it and Ship’s Westwood. Equals devastation....
Many years later Biff Naylor repurposed a Hamburger Hamlet in Pasadena into a DuPar’s.
I inquired as to why he let that iconic building go, His answer was basically “The Times, They Were a Changing” sounded a lot like Bob Dylan......
I inquired if he’d ever attempt to do another like it perhaps with additional seating, his answer was very open..... if not him perhaps someone with much deeper pockets....
That brings to the Parasols Torrance Seal Beach.
Those were both great restaurants. Both had their niche clientele, which provided their existence, well A Drug Store Chain ended up with the property on PCH...
The Shops at Rossmore in Seal Beal slated its unit for demo, but “The Friends of The Parasol”saved it and it became a Mel’s Drive-In. , it is now a Panera Bread retaining its circular Parasol Shape.

Jnaki,
Thanks for the memories.....

 

Hey CK,
Great history on all of the structures. Research and personal history is always the "great finds" of this site. Way to go...

Jnaki

 

Great write up. I have been to all of those places from the 50's onward.

 

agreed!

 

Hey CK,
The Parasol in Torrance was a mainstay for us until it was torn down. A great late night place. But, we lived down a ways...from the Seal Beach Blvd. other Parasol Restaurant, went there once as the Parasol, and 20 plus years later, Panera Bread, in an odd trip to that shopping center for some Xmas decoration closeouts. Each place held its own with the hot rod crowd and the locals.

Jnaki
The next time we are in that area, we will definitely stop again, at Panera and check out the old "Parasol." Thanks...

 

Car has plates on it

 

The Parasol Restaurant, what memories I have of that place. My typical day included breakfast, lunch and dinner there. In the middle 1960's, I worked for Craig Breedlove, his shop was just a few blocks north on Amsler St., across the street from the bowling alley on Crenshaw. I lived just a few blocks east of Crenshaw and the PCH. In fact, we built the dual Chevy engine dragster in my apartment garage. Nye Frank was my roommate, we both worked at Breedlove's shop. I knew everyone that worked at the Parasol by name. The waitresses at the Parasol would see me drive into the parking lot in the morning and put in my "always the same" order (bacon and eggs, over medium, and an English Muffin). I loved that place...

 

So?

 

10-4

 

Would have to be a test mule. I worked at a GM assembly plant a few years laterwe pumped out 62 cars an hour, no time for something like this in assembly.

 

Thank you.Sometimes it seems nobody cares, that means a lot to me.I enjoy posting very much.

 

^^^^^ big cars pulled travel trailers back then.....common.^^

 

For you Portland people! Who DIDN'T go to one of these?